Saturday, November 25, 2006

Saturday Night At The Movies

A Long Goodbye

By Dennis Hartley

I was going to write a movie review (after all, this post is billed as “Saturday Night At The Movies”) but as a dedicated film buff I feel compelled to pay my respects to Robert Altman, who we lost on November 20. OK, he was 81 years old, so on one level I can’t say I was completely blindsided-but this was a “senior citizen” who was not planning his next golf outing, but in the midst of wrapping pre-production on his next film, for Christ’s sake. We lose great actors and directors all the time, but there are some whose loss precipitates something much deeper than just a momentary “Wow…bummer” reflection. Robert Altman wasn’t just a “maverick” or an “iconoclastic Hollywood outsider”-he was his own genre (“Altmanesque” has become part of the cinematic lexicon for good reason). Contemporary directors like John Sayles and PT Anderson owe their entire filmmaking approach to Altman’s pioneering groundwork. No American filmmaker before or since could Question Authority (on and off-screen) whilst flaunting cinematic conventions so….cinematically. Rather than boring you with more superlatives, I’ll let the Man’s work speak for itself. Here are some of my recommendations:

The Long Goodbye -Altman stands film noir on its head and coaxes a career best performance from Elliot Gould as he reinvents Phillip Marlowe for the Me Decade.

California Split Elliot Gould and George Segal are priceless in Altman’s existential Vegas pastiche. A close cousin to “The King Of Marvin Gardens” in its bittersweet examination of beautiful losers and the elusive American Dream.

Nashville Considered by many to be Altman’s masterwork; it certainly qualifies as “Altmanesque” -dozens of disparate vignettes eventually intersect at the scene of a (fictional) political assassination. (Emilio Estevez’s “Bobby” sounds suspiciously derivative- which I will be able to either confirm or retract once I screen it-stay tuned!)

Secret Honor In just under 90 minutes, Altman cinematically sums up the Shakespearean train wreck that was the Nixon administration. Unique in the Altman canon in that it features a cast of just one. Phillip Baker Hall’s fearless and profane invocation of the madness of King Richard has to be seen to be believed.

All of the above films are currently in print on DVD and easy to track down for purchase or rental. These are only a handful of the 40-odd films in the Altman canon; see ‘em all!